


Autumn Rain

by Mouldsee



Series: 君に届け (Kimi ni todoke) [1]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Canon, M/M, Rusty writing please forgive, labour of love, nobody dies don't worry, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 10:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mouldsee/pseuds/Mouldsee
Summary: Changmin takes a walk with the man he has loved for seventeen years.





	Autumn Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WennyT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/gifts).

> Happy Birthday Wenny! I hope you like it and sorry for having to keep you in the dark - for obvious reasons. 
> 
> I promised fics written to Eason's songs five years ago and I try not to break promises, even though it's just a cover of 一生中最爱. But Eason makes this song about Shim. I heard it a year ago and this story has been sitting in me since.

Changmin steps out of the izakaya and shivers slightly. The coolness of the autumn evening contrasts with the cozy warmth of the pub. 

A chilly breeze dances over his cheeks, momentarily cutting through the heat curling pleasantly through him thanks to the two bottles of sake he had at dinner. 

Somewhere behind him, Yunho dawdles as usual. Changmin can hear him through the door, exchanging niceties with the owner while he pays.

The street is quiet. The izakaya is a hole in the wall tucked outside the busy part of their district. And only the odd resident returning home late from work can be seen. 

It looks like rain. 

Changmin hunches slightly into his cashmere jumper.

Still no Yunho. But his voice floats brightly through from within.

The cold is not uncomfortable. Changmin wishes the older man would just put an end to the  _ thank yous, we had such a good time, we will come again _ , so that they can go home. 

Evenings like this one, with a sit down meal with alcohol, without being hurried, poked and prodded at with make up brushes and styling tools, capped off with a slow leisurely walk home, is a luxury.

It begins to drizzle. 

_ What on earth is hyung doing? They had already given their autographs and surely he wasn’t getting his picture ta- _

The door swings open and heat blasts out.

“It’s raining!” 

_ Finally. _

Yunho is flushed from the three glasses of the sake Changmin had ordered. And smiley. 

The smile is aimed at no one in particular, but at least his speech is coherent.

Changmin reaches for the umbrella that is a permanent fixture in his bag, but Yunho has other ideas.

“C’mon, let’s make a dash for it. Our flat is only thirty minutes away!”

With Jung Yunho, that level of optimism is not alcohol-fueled, Changmin witnesses this on a daily basis. 

The black storm umbrella snaps opens firmly.

“It is one thing to dance for three hours in the rain for people who have paid to watch me do it. But I object to getting wet for laughs…”

Yunho’s smile widens. 

Too late, he realises that he is being teased. He allows his lips to curl slightly. 

“...because I am a stuffy old man.”

A snort of laughter.

They start the walk towards home. Changmin on the right, holding out the umbrella with his left hand to keep the other man dry. Their steps are slow and leisurely despite the weather. 

“We are getting old aren’t we, Changminnie.” Yunho says sombrely, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. 

Changmin glances over but the other man’s expression is hidden in shadow. 

“I’d like to think that I haven’t wasted my entire youth on you,” he jokes, reluctant to let the light mood disappear.

“Too late. You should have quit when I told you to.” the answering smile in Yunho’s voice is a relief.

“If you had asked  _ nicely _ …” he mock gripes, gaining stupid satisfaction from having the last word. 

They settle into an easy silence. 

The drizzle turns into a mist of rain, and the night changes. The harsh fluorescent of the street lamps softens into a pretty glow, the streets lined with silver. The shadows no longer stark black but foggy grey.

Beneath the umbrella, the veil of rain cuts them off from the world, cloaking them in an intimacy that is almost dream-like.

Changmin wants time to standstill. Freeze frame this moment where there is beauty in its simplicity. 

Just the two of them, walking home in the rain. Like normal people. 

He didn’t know he can still feel wistful.

It is as if Yunho can hear his thoughts and turns to look up at him quizzically, eyes crinkling, his face lit by a passing car’s headlights. 

The tired lines on the boyish face made more prominent by age and the lack of make up turns the wistfulness into an ache. 

Perhaps it is the alcohol. Or something in the rain. Whatever it is, it breaches the walls he has carefully built. 

Changmin allows himself to step in closer. 

Not close enough to brush shoulders, but enough to feel the heat radiating off the other man.

And as if out of sheer habit, Yunho leans in slightly, reducing the gap even further. 

They don’t touch. 

Sixteen years. Seventeen, if he counts the year in training. More than half a lifetime of being beside Jung Yunho. 

_ If you aren’t serious about this, quit now. _

The irony of it all, the moment those words were said, it is both the beginning and also the point of no return for him. 

*

Shim Changmin is ordinary. He  _ wants  _ to be ordinary. 

He thinks that maybe if he doesn’t try too hard, he can get a ticket back to his very extremely normal life. 

And then this snaggle-toothed boy with a country accent, who dances like his limbs are made of silk, bothers himself to notice his skinny awkward self and cares enough to tell him to try harder or piss off. 

The jumble of emotions - indignation because  _ how dare he, _ the exhilaration of being noticed, and oddly, the satisfaction of being told that he can be better than  _ this, _ makes him throw his entire being into proving that boy from Gwangju wrong. 

And in doing so, Changmin finds a love for music that he didn’t know he had. 

And then he loves Yunho.

Changmin loves him for all his dreams of being extraordinary and dragging him, whether he wants to or not, along for the ride. Loves him for being so strong, so  _ certain _ . Loves him with all the desperation and insecurity of a fourteen year old overwhelmed by attention, adoration and too many people. 

Yunho is a life line in a life he never wanted. 

And Changmin holds on tight. 

*

They arrive at an intersection and stop for the lights to change. Yunho shifts his weight between his feet, as if in anticipation of a song. 

Changmin waits. 

It takes just two seconds for the older man to start rocking on the balls of his feet and hum a tune. 

If he could, Changmin thinks wryly, he would do a Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. 

_ Some things never change. _

Changmin joins in with his own harmony. 

*

At seventeen, Changmin watches Yunho. 

He watches Yunho move like liquid fire across the stage and  _ burns.  _ He stares in fascination as the rough straight-talker polishes up to become a man whose smile could light up the room and reporters hang onto his every word. His gaze never wavers from the boy whom he hero worshipped, grows up to take on the world like the star he was always meant to be. 

Changmin’s eyes never,  _ cannot _ leave his leader as Yunho batters his own body over and over for a goal that only he can see, to the point of collapse. 

And then he does.

The screams, the limp body, paramedics rushing in and then disappearing.

Chaos.

Fear. Helplessness. Anger.

The endless waiting for news. 

And when the slim athletic figure walks through the front door of the dorm and gives a wan smile. 

Changmin breaks.

Because he loves Yunho.

Loves with all the frustration of raging hormones and spiraling loneliness from being too tall, too skinny, too true to himself. Loves him for being so fucking generous and sweet. Loves Yunho for being a friend despite Changmin being too everything he wasn’t. 

Loves him despite being told he isn’t good enough, isn’t talented enough, isn’t someone else. 

In this crazy extraordinary world where Changmin still has no idea what is being asked of him, he watches over Yunho instead.

*

Changmin touches Yunho lightly on the arm to indicate that they should go left. 

The streetlamps are becoming more sparse as they go deeper into the residential parts of the neighbourhood - only the sensory lights of the houses illuminate their way.

Changmin lets his hand rest on Yunho’s back. Barely a touch. 

Just in case. 

He knows what he looks to everyone else - an over-solicitous nanny.

But he just cannot help himself.

Just like how Yunho somehow can’t help but lose his sense of direction and pretty much everything else around Changmin.

He cannot resist a tiny side eye at the man beside him.

Yunho is still humming, lost in his own thoughts.

The rhythm of their steps don’t change as they shift direction towards the final kilometre home. 

Strides in sync.

*

At twenty years old, Changmin watches the world explode. 

The mad carousel ride he had hopped on five years before had spun too fast too soon and flown out of control, casually flinging him off. 

Just when he thought he had gotten used to the fucking ride.

Life sucks and then it sucks more, as the saying goes.

How does one stop being after being irrevocably changed by being amongst the stars even when it feels like he was plunged into the depths of hell?

How does one stop the music flowing through his being? Just when he had found his voice?

How to walk away when the person who anchors this existence is also splintering apart? To stop the self blame, anger,  _ rage _ , the niggling feeling that maybe, just maybe the world is right and they are wrong.

There is no question about staying. 

Because it means being able to be with Yunho. 

Even if it’s to stay silent against public hate, hide away to spend agonisingly long days of nothingness, and decide on an uncertain future.

_ “Even if it’s just the two of us, because it is us, we can do this.” _

But staying isn’t enough. 

For their world to begin again, Changmin has to believe that he is good enough to be extraordinary. 

To own that place beside Jung Yunho. 

*

The ache in his glutes from the eight hour long practice earlier in the day makes Changmin hesitate for a beat when confronted by the stairs leading up to the flats on the hill. 

Yunho takes the first step up and turns. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Like you said, getting old.” 

Yunho reaches for the umbrella.

“Let me hold that. You’re getting wet.”

Changmin thinks to resist but hands it over anyway.

The entire right side of his body is soaked through and tomorrow is another punishing eight hour day for him.

After all, perfection has its price. 

“You hate being cold,” Yunho clucks disapprovingly.

“It took you awhile to notice...” Changmin shoots back, but without any bite.

Yunho holds out the umbrella in silent apology, looking chastised. 

_ I am such a hyung pabo. _

*

When they start to put together the pieces after falling apart. The process is frustrating because broken shards never fit just right. 

After all, one is never quite the same after breaking into pieces.

Even love cannot be the same.

Clashes, cold wars, confidences and care,  _ comfort _ , all jumbled up in this feat of building their lives together.

The result is something where they sometimes didn’t know where one starts and the other ends.

The want has become a need. 

Changmin loves Yunho. 

Friends and business partners. Desire and respect. Push and pull. Love and war. 

He loves him despite the contradictions. Loves him because of his pride, his vulnerability. For believing in him,  _ them _ , simple blind faith. But most of all, Changmin loves because Yunho needed him back.

And for the first time, at age twenty-four, Changmin starts to believe that Yunho can love him too.

*

“We should do this more often.”

Going up the stairs should be an effort but Yunho seems to have perked up. 

Perhaps the walk had sobered Yunho up somewhat, Changmin can feel one of his partner’s ideas like an incoming bazooka. 

“Drinking...?” His voice is hopeful.

Changmin gets ignored. 

“Walking! We need to take more walks together,” The umbrella flails in demonstration of Yunho’s enthusiasm, “Start taking care of our health.” 

“Under better weather conditions hopefully?” 

Changmin stifles a laugh because Yunho is being perfectly serious. 

They are starting to sound like two retirees planning the good life. 

“Together we will beat the rain…!” 

The umbrella stabs the sky and they both get rain in their faces. 

Changmin loses it. 

He laughs all the way to the shelter of home.

*

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

In Changmin’s case, Yunho’s absence is like a gaping hole in his soul. 

But when time is practically at a standstill, away from the madness, Yunho’s absence is also a time to slow down, find a balance after over a decade of delirious highs and soul shattering lows. 

It is also a time to heal.

Strength comes from being whole, contentment from acceptance. 

At age thirty-one, Shim Changmin loves Jung Yunho.

Loves him unconditionally. Loves him beyond reason. Loves him with all the certainty of having tomorrows. 

Because they both choose to.

Changmin knows that whatever happens, they will be two ordinary people, always walking together, in this extraordinary life.

_ I will love you forever, _

_ I will love you for always. _

_ Let’s grow old together. _

**Author's Note:**

> Some background:
> 
> 1) This story is my own love letter to Shim Changmin. To the boy who loves despite it all. 
> 
> 2) Setting inspired by the first half of “Something in the Rain”.
> 
> 3) The past five years has also taught me alot about growing up, life choices and what unconditional love truly means and hopefully it comes through!
> 
> 4) I would love to hear your feedback!


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